


(I could be lovely) given the chance

by inthisdive



Category: Gossip Girl RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-31
Updated: 2009-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from Kelly Clarkson's "Can I Have a Kiss".</p>
    </blockquote>





	(I could be lovely) given the chance

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kelly Clarkson's "Can I Have a Kiss".

*

It's Saturday night. They don't go out much any more - not to clubs, and they don't really do the hard-partying lifestyle - because it's just too much _work_. They've seen what tabloids do to Ed (and Jess, and Chace) and besides, they've been together long enough that sitting at home in front of the TV or cooking dinner together kind of seems like the better idea. They don't have to pretend to have boundless energy; they don't need to impress each other any more.

Though the time they made ice-cream sundaes with chocolate sauce and cherries on top, Penn had been pretty impressed when Blake tied a knot in her cherry's stem with her tongue.

It is a Saturday night, and Blake is at Penn's, Penny all tucked up in bed beside them, even though Penn had told her _five hundred times_ that her dog being in the bed was kind of creepy and unhygenic and wrong. Penn is wearing a pore strip across his nose because being on-camera makes him vain sometimes, and he didn't think twice about the stupid before-bed routine he'd adopted that week until he looked at Blake and started feeling like the biggest tool in the universe - because then there was Blake beside him. And she was _Blake_.

Blake, in one of his t-shirts and her hair pulled back in a ponytail with wisps of blonde hair escaping all over and framing her face in this way Penn thought was pretty and oddly soft, just like that, with Blake sitting up against the pillows and settled back. She looks so relaxed and unguarded and genuine, and Penn just stares.

She's gorgeous.

When Blake catches him looking she crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue, and Penn can't take his eyes off her.

She's more than gorgeous, he reminds himself. She's _perfect_.

*

Things hadn't always been perfect. Blake hadn't always _felt_ perfect. Penn still remembers when no one spoke to him, and he remembers slipping on his best wry smile and thinking _well, at least it's in character_. He looks back now and knows he must have seemed all the more irritating with that pretentious as fuck little smile, but it was the best armour he'd had against all the underhwelming welcomes.

He hadn't expected everyone to hate him. Well. He hadn't expected _Blake_ to hate him.  
There are reasons, many reasons, why Chace and Ed are so close, and Ed and Leighton, and Blake and Leighton, and Ed and Jessica, and Taylor and - okay, there are so many reasons why everyone has every dynamic that they have, and there are probably many reasons why Penn is often on the outside, but one of them will still be the way his Gossip Girl initiation featured a heavy-handed silent treatment. Everything is better now, obviously, but those first few weeks of bonding are hard to break, and sometimes Penn steps back and walks the New York streets alone in his breaks, armed with coffee or mineral water and a coat.

And sometimes Blake, his impossible perfection, comes with him, and they walk through skyscrapered streets together, and Penn remembers that it's different now. That things got better.

That Blake, somehow, loves him.

*

Penn's an actor, but he's not an _actor_. He doesn't get all serious about his 'craft' (or call it a craft) and he usually, usually - always - feels a disconnect from his character. Acting is a job for Penn, it's not a calling, and it's that intellectual part of himself he can never shut off that makes him good at his job (or at least at his job playing Dan, who he's convinced is kind of a douchebag).

Sometimes that sets him apart from other actors, and he was complaining about it once to Blake, sprawled out on the couch with her: her legs in his lap, Penn clumsily trying to braid her hair. Some movie was on in the background and Lindsay Lohan was covered with soap bubbles and foam, and Penn was thoughtful, and - sure - a little whiny.

"They look down on me because of it," he said, a strand of her hair slipping through his fingers. He quickly picked it up and threaded it through. Blake winced at the sudden movement, he noticed, but she didn't complain, and he was grateful.

Blake was silent for a minute, then tilted her head to look up at him. "I get that."

He paused, hands in her hair. "You do?"

"Please. I'm the Lively that _didn't_ want to be in the business. What do you think?"

Penn considered that, and considered it seriously, because even when it was said with a touch of sarcasm or _duh_ , the phrase _what do you think_ had always been important to him, and he was going to make sure he knew what he thought before he told her.

"I never thought of that before," he admitted. Blake sat up to reach for her glass; Penn moved instinctively to pick it up and pass it over to her.

Blake just smiled. "I know you didn't. You never believe me when I say we're made for each other."

And in that moment, Penn thought he might have self-esteem enough to believe her.

*

It's Saturday night, and when Penn shuts off the lamp on his nightstand (the new lamp, the one Blake had teased him for buying because he had to take his mom along to make the final decision - but whatever, she was better at stuff like _lamps_ than Penn, okay?) everything is dark, and although New York street sounds filter in under closed windows and doors, it's relatively quiet.

Penn closes his eyes to sleep, and tells Blake goodnight. She murmurs a sleepy reply, and the last thing Penn remembers before he slips under the unconsciousness of sleep is Blake curling herself around him; her arm thrown around his waist, face pressed against his shoulder, their toes touching.


End file.
